Heaven is the realm of God. God lives there, Jesus went there, at the Final Trumpet, the faithful are to be gathered there. “Heaven sent” is a good thing. I am engaged in a personal struggle to do an “attitude and expression swap”. Instead of saying something like “what the H-E-double hockey sticks is going on?”, I am working on “what the Heaven is going on?” It might be that the "motivational" intent of my saying is more 'H-E-double hockey sticks' than it is the home and place of our beloved Lord, but I am, as are we all, a work in progress; change the language, change the motivation.
So our church is, in my mind, an extension of Heaven. It is, as well, a work in progress, as all churches are. But it is also a neighborhood. And it is God’s. For the longest time, the expression in my mind has been that we are “a Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God”. The Kingdom of God versus Heaven’s suburbs? It is another attitude and expression swap, but maybe not on the level of trying to govern my mouth with some of the more ‘colorful metaphors’ of the English language.
And Kingdom of God, there is a phrase of, pardon the pun, Biblical proportions. So why appear to "water" it down? Or maybe hose it down? Well, the more I come understand about kings, the more I come to understand about humans who pile up power, the more this term disturbs me. I know, I get it, Jesus is King. Yes He is. That is not the problem. The problem comes from the humans who seek to put on that mantle. Yes, calling themselves ‘king’ is a throwback in history, but the power that people seek to gather and wield, that is very real. The ‘divine’ right of kings, claiming Jesus’ authority to cover whatever behavior is done with that power, the 'king' part may have slipped away, but claiming Jesus' authority? That is alive and well in the world today.
Everybody who aspires to the power and authority of Jesus, in whatever role, is going to fall short. Even those who do so legitimately. And we live in a generation where a lot of people manipulate the name and authority of Jesus for their own gains. They could care less what Jesus did, except for what faking Jesus can do for them. So, I find it appropriate to back off the language of personal authority-even authority laid into the arms of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I am going to take some flak for that. People are not going to like my choice. They will think I am backing off the authority of Jesus (instead of the language), that my language is getting weak, diluted by ‘political correctness’ or some current linguistic equivalent. But for me, it is coming to see how the misuse of power and authority in this life, in God’s name or not, is hurting people. Yes, we all sin, but this kind of sin is next level. And the image of a neighborhood in the suburbs, the image of a neighborhood of a small town, the image of where all God’s people live in peace and equity before our Maker, that brings comfort. There is nobody out there but Jesus that I want to have as my king.
Well then, some might argue, that is not a sin thing, that is a ‘lack of faith’ thing. I don’t have enough faith to be able to distinguish the Power of Jesus and the power in Jesus given to humanity. Then I would point to the letter that comes out of the Council in Jerusalem. It instructs the Gentile Christians not to eat meat offered to idols. Now, God’s authority is absolute and those other gods do not exist. But humans are not so powerful.
So, God’s authority is absolute and good and God does not abuse power. But humans are not so good, and are incredibly abusive. So what does it serve me to do something that may cause a foot to stumble? Better not to eat the food offered to idols. Better to put some distance in from language that may swell somebody's head into thinking they have what it takes to wield the authority of Christ. Better to know we are all sinners, we are all equal in God's eyes, we are all in need of forgiveness. We are all one in the Lord.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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